“Hey,” he said after a long silent moment. “Don’t be worried about the dinner thing. With my parents. You already get along great with Elyse, and I know they’ll love you.”
That sounds serious. There’d been a few moments lately when I’d believed we were something more than a fling, times when I caught him looking at me a certain way, or I fantasized about more. The idea of formally meeting his parents pushed things deeper into confusing territory. “I said I’d go,” I reminded him. “I just…yeah, it feels like a lot.”
“Amy.” He laid his hand on the side of my face and gave me an honest look miles from his usual cocky grin. “Sometimes I think I want a lot. But I know that’s not what we talked about.”
Wow.
Trent stepped back. “And if my sister wasn’t sleeping upstairs, I’d be nailing you four ways to Sunday right fucking now.” Goodbye romance and hello lust.
“Sounds like a promise,” I told him. Was there something more here? I wasn’t a romantic. I didn’t care for over-the-top movies, and I didn’t imagine the fantasy wedding. What I wanted was harder to define. It involved trust and faith and someone steadfast and dependable. And right now, Trent was solid and warm, and more important than anything else, he kept showing up.
“So dinner? I swear it’ll be casual.” He sounded hopeful.
“I already said yes,” I reminded him.
We went inside and found Elyse sitting at the kitchen counter, a bowl of cereal in front of her. She looked wan and sad, hunched over the bowl with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Trent stood across the counter from her and crossed his arms, while I made myself busy drying off at the top of the stairs.
“I’m sorry,” Elyse said, her voice small. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“I should,” Trent said, and I wondered how he’d handle this. I’d never really seen him in a difficult situation—aside from at the hospital. “But I don’t think it will make a difference, and it will definitely piss them off.”
Elyse nodded, still looking like a guilty puppy. “Is your car okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Listen”—Trent dropped his hands to the counter, looking suddenly tired as he faced his little sister—“I don’t care about the car. I’m worried about you. Anything could have happened. You know that, right?”
She nodded miserably.
“You’re my little sister. I’m supposed to take care of you…and I feel like I’m failing. Not just today. I’m not around, and you’re in that big, stuffy house alone…”
“Mom’s there. And Nadia.” She glanced up at him.
“I know how it is,” he said softly. “Or I can imagine.”
She shrugged.
“But, Elyse, you have to stay in control. Drinking is one thing, but getting to the point where you’re vulnerable—”
“I can take care of myself,” she burst out, suddenly indignant.
Trent wore a look of patient understanding on his face, and my heart melted a bit. He acts like a player, but he’s a good man.
“If I drink enough, even I can’t take care of myself.” He stood up to his full height, and the muscles in his chest and arms stood out in the afternoon sunlight pouring in through the windows. “No one can. Alcohol steals your inhibitions, and if you drink enough of it, you’re not just making bad choices, you can’t even walk.”
“I could walk,” she said, but you could hear the defeat in her voice.
“You were in danger today, Sis,” Trent said. “And I’m glad we found you before something really terrible happened.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared into her bowl.
“I know I can’t ask you to never drink again,” Trent said thoughtfully. “But will you make me a promise?”
Elyse cocked her head to one side, looking up into his face.
“If you ever get into a situation where you’re uncomfortable, you call me, okay?”
She looked hesitant. “It’s just…I mean, when I’m with my friends—”
Trent made a noise of understanding and leaned down on the countertop, resting his weight on his forearms. “You can’t always call.”
She shrugged.
“What if we had a code? What if you texted me something, and I promise if I get that text, I’ll come get you?”
“Except when you’re at work.”
“Well, I can’t leave the fire station during a shift,” he said thoughtfully.
“But I could come,” I ventured. “You text Trent, and one of us will call you and tell you that we have to come get you because something important has come up. You can make up an excuse to your friends—or whoever—about how lame your family is. How they’re insisting they have to come get you.”
“So it’s not like I want to leave.”
“Right, but you get out of a tough situation if you need to.” Trent shot me a grateful look.
“So what’s the code?” Elyse asked, turning her head from Trent to look at me.
“Maybe just a letter? Something easy to text without anyone even seeing? Like an X.”
She nodded. “The X Plan.”
Trent grinned. “The X Plan. Deal?”
“It’ll work only if you give me my phone back,” Elyse said, some of the teenage attitude back in her voice. “But, yeah, deal.” She glanced at me, and a little half smile played across her lips.
Trent gave her phone back, and she actually hugged him afterward. When they dropped me off at home later, she called out the window to me, “See you later, Amy,” as if nothing unusual had happened.
…
Trent picked me up for dinner with his parents that Friday right on time, and I shoved aside the nerves that had been dancing in my stomach all day. I’d given notice at work, and it had been an insane end of the week. This dinner is a bad idea. If he didn’t look so hopeful, I could maybe say I’d changed my mind.
“It’ll be fine,” he told me as we took the freeway north to La Jolla. He turned into the rolling hills and up several windy streets into a neighborhood I hadn’t known existed and stopped the car in front of a huge iron gate at the bottom of a hill. Holy shit.
“This place is crazy,” I said, watching the gates swing inward after he punched in a code.
We pulled into a lot in front of a circular drive that would have easily held fifteen cars. The grounds around the house were green and manicured, eucalyptus trees leaning in as if they’d been painted perfectly around the soaring pink house with its wings running out each way from the front door. Considering I had no idea how I was going to pay my medical school tuition for the next four years, it was difficult to stand here amid the wafting scent of cash and not be a bit shocked.
No wonder Trudy looked at me that way. She lives in a palace. I sighed. I didn’t know if I could handle having to defend myself all night. I wasn’t up for a fight. I’d been proving myself to people for as long as I could remember. And now? Now that I was finally on the brink of accomplishing my goals and finding my own place in the world, I wasn’t investing the effort to prove myself to yet another disbeliever.
“Hey.” Trent took my hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry, just distracted with school stuff.” That was kind of true at least. I couldn’t tell him his house made me feel inadequate in every single way, that rich people intimidated me, or that things between us wouldn’t work out even if we wanted them to, just because he’d grown up surrounded by all of this and never thought twice about it.
We walked to the front door, and Trent rang the bell.
Why doesn’t he have a key?
A thin, mousy woman in a uniform answered the door. “Mr. McNeil,” she said in a clipped accent. Her smile was wide and welcoming.
“Nadia.” Trent grinned and leaned down to hug her. “This is Amy, my…” Trent paused, his eyes holding a question. “My girlfriend.”
Wow. Okay. But I guess he can’t say I’m his current hookup. “Hello,” I said, extending a hand. Th
e woman grasped my fingers awkwardly and then stepped aside.
“It is lovely to meet you,” she told me. She turned to Trent. “Your family waits on the back patio.”
“Thanks,” Trent said, taking my hand and pulling me into the house. Palace. Whatever.
The place was decked out and shiny. The luxury conveyed by every piece of furniture, every well-placed knickknack, had me on edge. It looked more like a museum than a home. How does Trent’s little sister live here? This isn’t a place for a teenager to flop down and relax.
Trudy and Hank sat on either side of a small round table on the patio overlooking a large sparkling swimming pool, while Elyse appeared to be sunbathing in the fading glow of sunset, her lean body in a bikini splayed on a lounge chair a few feet away.
“Trent,” Trudy called, rising and coming to greet us. She kissed him and beamed at him for an awkward moment before letting her gaze briefly touch my face. “Amy, hello dear. Nice to see you again.”
Hank didn’t stand, but Trent and I both leaned down to greet him, and his welcome was far warmer than his wife’s. “There she is.” He grinned up at me. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Trent tells me you saved my wife in the hospital.” Cringe. He told his dad that? “Save” was a pretty strong word for taking someone’s pulse.
“That may be a bit of an exaggeration, Hank.” Trudy’s thin smile didn’t touch her icy eyes as she sat back down. “Let’s not go overboard. You’ll embarrass her.”
I doubted Trudy cared about embarrassing me at all, but I was happy for the change of subject.
Trent poured us each a drink from the bar cart sitting near the table, and we took the two empty chairs. “How are you?” he asked his dad, concern making his eyes darker.
Hank grinned and raised his glass. “I’m still here, son. So I’d say I’m doing pretty damned well.”
“You scared us the other night,” Trent told him.
“He’s fine,” Elyse said, turning her head toward us, her voice bored and flat. “He’s been on the phone all day with work. Business as usual.”
“Well, you look good, Dad,” Trent said.
Elyse sighed and pulled the towel from her lounger, wrapped it around herself, and moved to join us. She picked up a glass at the bar cart and was about to pour herself some scotch when Trudy stopped her. “Elyse.”
The girl rolled her eyes and dropped the tumbler back to the cart’s surface with a thud. She leaned below to pull a Diet Coke from the bottom shelf. She dropped into a chair next to Hank, and her attention was immediately on the phone in her hand.
“You doing okay, Elyse?” Trent tried. The question earned another deep sigh and an eye roll.
Despite the fact she was practically a princess, I felt sorry for the girl. She seemed unreachable and isolated, and I wondered what was really going on in her life, not that it was any of my business.
“I’m just going to run in to use the bathroom,” I whispered to Trent.
“There’s one out here.” He indicated a small pool house. Of course there’s a pool house. With a bathroom. Outside.
“Excuse me for a moment,” I said to his family, crossing the pool deck. The pool house was nice, like a small apartment with a kitchen and a living room—not as ornate as the main house. I found the bathroom and closed the door. I took a deep breath and stared into the mirror, and froze as I heard Elyse’s voice wafting through the open window.
“It’s nice to see your girlfriend again.”
A little jolt went through me. They’re going to talk about me. God, why did I come?
“That’s a strong word,” Trudy snipped. “She’s not his girlfriend.” Perceptive. Or just bitchy.
“She’s gorgeous, that’s what she is,” Hank said. “And it sounds like she’s a quick thinker, too. I’ll give her that much.” He said this as if I’d asked for something more.
“Amy is my girlfriend, actually,” Trent told them, sounding like he was barely managing to control his anger. “And I’m happy she decided to come at all after the chilly reception you gave her at the hospital.”
“I can’t be held responsible for my behavior at a time when your father’s life was hanging in the balance, and my own health was…wobbly,” she said.
“Maybe not. But you were less than friendly.”
“Perhaps she needs a thicker skin. I think I said all of ten words to the girl. If she’s so easily offended, maybe she’s a little weak for you.”
There was a pause in the conversation, and I used the bathroom, trying to pretend like this awkward family gathering was completely normal. Why am I in this situation in the first place? Trent and I aren’t even really dating—are we?
Trudy’s voice chimed again. “Maybe you should revisit things with Rebecca. Her mother tells me she’s single, and she still speaks fondly of you.”
Rebecca Stone was Trent’s high school girlfriend. I’d heard a bit about her, but she hadn’t been a frequent topic of conversation. “Mom, I can handle my own dating life.”
It was quiet outside as I finished up and rejoined the group on the patio, aware of everyone’s eyes on me as I retook my seat. “Your home is beautiful,” I told the table at large, feeling like I needed to say something. It’s beautiful, and I desperately want to run away from it and never come back.
“Thank you, dear,” Trudy said, addressing me like a child, her nose pointed at the ground and batting her eyes.
“Mom.” Elyse’s voice was high, wheedling. “Did I tell you that Amy said I should put blue in my hair?”
I cringed, wishing I could seal Elyse’s mouth with a look. “Well, that’s not exactly—”
“She dyed her hair all black when she was my age,” Elyse continued, her volume escalating to cover my protest. “And she’s totally fine now,” she said. “So I could totally put a few blue streaks—”
“I said no,” Trudy said, her voice ringing with finality and irritation. I could practically hear her thoughts about me interfering with her parenting and disrupting her family. Not a word came out, but I was left sweating nonetheless.
“Trent,” Hank began. “We need to really talk, son. Business is booming.” It was a bit of a non sequitur, but everyone else seemed to roll with it, so I sipped my wine and listened.
“Sounds like a good problem to have,” Trent said.
“It is, but it’s not exactly automatic, either. It takes a lot of management, as you’re finding out with the High Note.”
“Right.” Trent sighed but kept his attention on his father as the older man began talking about all the ways Trent could be helping out.
Trudy was watching this exchange a bit too eagerly, her head tracking between them like she was at a tennis match. It set my nerves on edge, and I was glad when Nadia stepped outside to let us know dinner was ready.
Is dinner at the McNeils’ always like this? How can Trent take it?
Chapter Eleven
Trent
My parents’ place was kind of ridiculous, and I could see Amy’s discomfort at the formality of everything. I put an arm around her as the family rose to go inside. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her voice and her answer weren’t convincing, This isn’t the casual event I sold her. Nothing with my parents ever is.
“Hey,” I said, tipping her chin up to look at me. “I know this is a little stiff. But we’ll just have a quick dinner and get out of here.”
She shook her head, and the uncertainty on her face slid away. “It’s fine if your mom hates me. Your parents don’t have to approve of every single girl you date, right? Plus, it isn’t like we’re serious.” Her voice was light, like she was trying to be casual and nonchalant. But I could hear a thin waver that made me think she didn’t entirely believe her own words.
Is it wrong I’m starting to wish we were serious? “I don’t know what you feel, Amy, but I don’t want anything about my family to change it. The only thing I care about is this. Between us. And nothing that happens here tonig
ht changes how I feel about you.” Don’t freak her out, dude. I was on dangerous ground—we hadn’t talked about feelings.
I wanted to say more, because Amy’s eyes were softening and she’d stepped closer to me, let me pull her in, but Nadia appeared back outside.
“Mr. McNeil. They wait for you.” My parents’ housekeeper gave me a shy smile as I nodded at her. I pressed a kiss to Amy’s cheek and took her hand as we followed Nadia inside.
We arrived to the dining room to find everyone already seated, Elyse still wearing her bikini, though I wondered how she wasn’t freezing. Mom always pumped the air conditioning down to sixty-five. At my place, I flung all the windows open in the evenings when I was home, letting the sound of the ocean mix with the steady breeze drifting inside. I had a strange pang of homesickness, sitting here now at my parents’ overly dressed table in their frigid house. And I had another thought… Poor Elyse.
I swallowed down the feeling and complimented the food.
“We have a new cook,” Mom said, lifting a shoulder. “She seems to be adequate.”
Amy sat silently at my side, pushing food around on her plate, clearly uncomfortable.
Dad cleared his throat and put down his fork, and I had a flashback to about nine hundred different meals throughout my childhood. “Let’s get down to business so we can eat.”
“Business?” I shook my head. “The club?”
“Among other things.” All-business Dad took a sip of water and then turned his focus fully on me, and I swear my mother was beaming as if she knew exactly what was coming. Even Elyse looked between us with some interest. This can’t be good. “Let’s talk about your life and what it’s going to look like going forward.” Oh shit. “Here’s the truth of it, son. I didn’t expect to have a heart attack.”
It didn’t feel right to correct his label of what had happened to him—the doctors had said unstable angina. Don’t correct him.
“I need you at work. Now. I need you to start taking on more responsibility for the family business, and to get yourself ready to take charge. I’ve got plenty of people who can help you along the way, but I need you in the office every day, learning the ropes, not just slinging drinks. And there’s not going to be time for riding around town on a fire truck once you’re running the show for McNeil Management Group.”
Without Promises (Under the Pier) Page 6